How do you budget for your favorite hobbies? 🎲🎮

Coach Jon
Coach Jon Moderator admin
in The Water Cooler

Hey everyone! Let's talk about balancing our financial goals with the things we do for fun. How do you budget for your favorite hobbies, collections, or entertainment?

I like to treat my hobby spending as its own dedicated category in my Quicken Simplifi Spending Plan. I make sure to carve out a specific "fun fund" each month so I can grab a new Dungeons & Dragons sourcebook, pick up the next big game, or add a few more volumes to my manga collection without any guilt. Knowing that money is already accounted for makes enjoying my downtime so much better!

What about you? Do you have a dedicated hobby fund, or do you just wing it from your general flexible spending? Let us know below!

-Coach Jon

Tagged:

Comments

  • SRC54
    SRC54 Superuser ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited March 17

    I tend not to have any dedicated funds because we use so many accounts, eg., credit cards, checks, debit charges, but I do have watchlists for my hobbies and my wife's. It just allows me to see how much we are spending overall at a glance. I have them as Steve's Stuff and Linda's Stuff, and each includes multiple categories.

    For predicatable activities such as my tennis club dues, my annual team trip, my wife's choral concerts and her service dues and activities, I use recurring transactions so they get budgeted each month. Of course, things might be scheduled differently the next year so I have to update the recurring transactions from time to time.

    Steve
    Quicken Simplifi (Safari & iOS) Since 2021
    Quicken Classic (MacOS) Since 2009
    MS Money (1991-2009) and Dollars & Sense (1987-1991)

  • RobWilk
    RobWilk Superuser ✭✭✭✭✭

    My hobby is my app, yes i sell it but really it's more like doing crafts and selling them at a craft fair. To be honest, I spend a lot more money than I make:

    Screenshot 2026-03-23 at 10.59.14 AM.png

    (screenshot from tax report)

    For most of the last few months, I was severely restricting spending - so I wasn't budgeting for anything at all. I had high-interest credit cards, and it didn't make sense to put money aside for savings or pretty much anything else.

    My next goal, I'm switching my direct deposits for primary income away from my main bank (Chase) to a credit union, and will have my App Income ("business income") for my hobby go TO chase. However, in the short term, I need to build my Chase balanace back up to $1500 minimum to avoid fees since there will be no large direct deposits.

    After that, my Chase account (any balance over $1500) will be my "hobby" ("business" sort of) fund. It will be a checking account, but money aside, which will be intended to be used strictly for the hobby. I might budget so much of each month's paycheck "also" to be sent to the Chase account, and will try to keep my specific spending around my hobby to funds available there. This will probably take a few months to 'stabilize'.

    -Rob

    —

    Rob Wilkens

Categories